Gecko

Rating:
Summary: Jim Monday vs. An Evil Villain, Lots of Cops and a Monster
Review: "Jump back!" the voice in his head says and Jim Monday jumps back as a dark Buick Regal comes flying out of nowhere, smashes into and kills his best friend. Had Jim not obeyed the voice, he too would be dead on the street. Above, looking down from a second story window is Dr. Kohler, the man who had stolen Jim's wife and now wants him dead. Jim is wealthy and the doctor wants his money.

The voice belongs to Donna Tuhiwai a woman over thirty years younger than Jim, who is being held captive in New Zealand, half a world away. In desperation she cast her mind out of her body and it settled in Jim. Donna is in mortal danger and desperately needs someone to come to her rescue, but Jim attacks Kohler as he blames him for his friend's death and that gets him arrested. He kills a couple of Kohler's henchmen while escaping, runs into his wife's twin sister as he's fleeing the police station, persuades her to help him with his getaway and learns that his wife is being held captive in Kohler's mansion in Northern California.

Police Sgt. Hugh Washington, recently busted down from homicide is hot on Monday's trail with his daughter Glenna, a police science major at Long Beach State College. Washington believes Monday is innocent, Glenna pressures him to let her help him in his quest to prove it.

Donna comes from a Maori family that is buried deep in tradition. One of her ancestors shunned a legendary Gecko beast and it has followed her mind to California and somehow has come under the power of Doctor Kohler. Every cop in California is on the lookout for Jim as he runs to save his wife, if he survives the gauntlet, the Gecko beast is waiting. And if he survives that, he has to get to New Zealand and save Donna before her captor kills her. And through it all he has the help of Donna, the voice in his head, who at times seems to be more in control of his body than he is himself.

Jack Priest has written a horror story thriller that had me biting my nails throughout the night as my fingers blistered through the pages. There is a Dean of horror and we all know who that is. There is a King of horror and we all know who that is too. Well now it appears, there is a Dark Priest of Horror. I didn't make that last part up, I read it in another review, but I agree with it whole heartedly. This scary horror thriller gets five stars from me. I loved it and I think you will too.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

Rating:
Summary: Spellbinding
Review: Another excellent tome by Jack Priest. When he sent me Ragged Man, Gecko and Night Witch I wasn't overjoyed. I expected to be sated on the genre before I finished the reading the first one (Ragged Man). Horror isn't my long suit, or so I thought.

Therefore, I was surprised to find myself a bit sorry when I finished Ragged Man. I immediately began Gecko and stayed up later than my usual pumpkin hour finishing it, enjoying every page.

Gecko is an imaginative, fast-paced combo of sinister supernatural beings, human crime and adventure. The characters are handled well, the monsters are entertaining and the plot is tightly woven. Jack Priest scored another home run with Gecko.

My suspicion is you'll buy another Jack Priest book if you read this one.

Rating:
Summary: He's Big. He's Green. He's a Total Killer!
Review: He's big, he's green, he's got horrendous breath and he's a total killer. He is, of course, the Gecko of the title. He's sort of a familiar to an evil, grazed, doctor, pornographer. The kind of guy you don't want to meet in a dark alley, especially if he's got his gecko pal along for the ride.

This story opens with our hero, Jim Monday and his best friend, attorney David Askew crossing the street. Monday hears a voice in his head, telling him to "Jump back." He does, David does not and is struck by hired killers in their stolen car. The killers work for Doctor Bernd Kohler, who has swept Monday's wife off her feet, so he's got half Jim's fortune, however he wants it all, hence the killers.

Back to the voice in Jim's head. It belongs to a woman named Donna, who is imprisoned in New Zealand, half a world away. Turns out her mind has flown the coup (it's an ancient Maori thing) and settled itself inside Monday. So now Jim's got a stranger living in his head. This makes for some very interesting reading, exciting too.

The evil doc takes Monday's wife up to his castle type hideaway in Northern California, Monday follows, getting constant advice from Donna in his head, and the Gecko is hot on Monday's tail. So are the cops, because Monday had a tussle with the killers and left them dead. Unfortunately he killed them in the police station and now the cops think he's the killer.

Fiftyish Jim Monday is a heck of a character. He's dogged and determined, but he's afraid to fly. He thinks like a young guy, but reacts like an old guy. He fights like the devil to save his wife, though she clearly is through with him. And then there is the matter of the girl in his head (she's like nineteen or twenty). There's a clock ticking on her and so he's gotta wrestle with that fear of flying if he wants to save her. Does he? Read the book and find out. Jeez, I used to say that when I gave book reports in elementary school, when I was a little girl. Five stars from Katie for this one.

Reviewed submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

Rating:
Summary: Can I have my money back, please?
Review: I read the reviews of Gecko on this website and thought that I might give Jack Priest a try. I hadn't read anything of his before, but seeing as how he is a Stephen King fan, I thought that I would start with Gecko.

I fought my way through the first 60 pages and then gave up. The book is poorly written. There are no descriptions of characters or places. I didn't even realize that one of the characters was black until the character used the phrase "big black god" to describe himself. And this was a sixth of the way through the book.

Usually if an author doesn't mention that a character is African American it's because the reader can tell through the dialogue. Not in Jack Priest's case. All of his characters sound exactly the same. Whether black or white.

I also found numerous grammatical errors throughout the first 60 pages. I don't think this book even had an editor.

On the front cover of the book it reads, "'This is a very scary book!"- Ken Douglas." Well, after reading The Bootleg Press Story (located at the back of the book) I found out that Ken Douglas is Jack Priest's friend and they like to swap stories and ideas. I would like to see somebody reputable review this book. Somebody who hasn't been bribed, that is.

Personally, I will never purchase another book from Bootleg Press or Jack Priest.


Rating:
Summary: Lots of Action & a Scary Monster too!
Review: I started this book on the first day of the year, early in the morn, and have now just finished it at Five PM. I did stop reading for a bowl game as my honey came over with some sumptuous Chinese and chopsticks, so I couldn't turn him away. But after the game, I picked the book back up, despite his protests, and read through to the end and I must say Mr. Priest has quiet an imagination. Giant green geckos preceded by their smaller cousins. An evil German doctor. Some pretty strange bad guys. A couple damsels in distress, one who makes it and one who doesn't. A black widow, gecko war dance and a whole lot more. Monsters in the dark and a bit of romance too. See I said there was more and I wasn't kidding, this is a super-fantastic story. I was really surprised and I hope to be just as surprised with Mr. Priest's other books. Give this one a read, you won't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Super-Thrilling-Scary-Fun Book!
Review: I'd read Mr. Priest's "Ragged Man" and kind of liked it. (I only gave it three stars in my review, because I thought it was a bit over the top.) A good friend, who really likes Jack Priest's books had been urging me to try something else and I hadn't, so he dropped by Xmas Eve with a copy of "Gecko" and I felt bad, because I hadn't gotten him anything.

"Read the book," he said, "and if you like it, write a good review. That's all the present I want in return."

"Fair enough," I said

"But don't write another stinker, like you did for "Ragged Man"."

"That's not very fair."

"It's Christmas, you don't have to be fair."

So I was a little tense when I woke up Christmas morning and started the book. What if I didn't like it? I just didn't think I could write a glowing review of a book I didn't like. Fortunately for me, "Gecko is head and hands above "Ragged Man." It's just a super thrilling, scary, fun book. I read the day away, with the book by my side as I opened presents and still there as I was eating turkey at my parent's. I simply couldn't put it down and I was sorry to see it end.

Give "Gecko" a try. If you do, I think like me, you will be pleasantly surprised.

Rating:
Summary: Hooked by the First Sentence
Review: It seems that the horror field is so dominated by two writers, whose last names both begin with K, that it's almost impossible to find works by other writers. Okay, maybe that's a little overstated, but not that much. Anyway I was delighted to try out a book by an author I'd never heard of and I'm glad I did. Jack Priest had me hooked with the first line. "It rained just before dawn the day Jim Monday's mind was invaded." How's that for an opener?

I liked the fast paced story, you barely get time to catch a breath, then BAM you're hit with something else to snatch it away, something either scary or gross or both. This is a good story. Jim Monday is a good character as is Washington the cop. I have a bunch of books piled up on the night stand next to my bed, waiting to be read and now I have to order a couple more, because I have to read everything by Jack Priest. Try one of his books and see if I'm not telling you true. I was hooked by that first sentence and taken along for a thrilling ride.

Rating:
Summary: Scaly, but not scary
Review: It was October and I was searching for some scary reads and GECKO, by Jack Priest, was one of the books I picked up. While highly entertaining, the book was not scary. It was action-packed and fast paced, (almost too fast paced at time). There was very little description - character, scene, setting, movement or otherwise - so I found it hard to really feel like I was grounded in the story. And all the scary scenes I was hoping for were skipped over. You never actually witnessed any of the murders.

The one scene that should've been really suspenseful, the MC Jim Monday strapped down naked in a room with a gecko and a black widow, was more of a flamenco dance than a torture scene. I really liked the story's concept. It was very original and interesting, and I'll definitely be picking up more of Priest's books to find out what else his mind can come up with. But if you're a true horror fan and are looking for something that will keep you awake until dawn, biting your fingers and pricking your ears to hear if there's anyone in the house with you - this book isn't going to cut it.

Rating:
Summary: Gecko Monster from New Zealand Comes to California
Review: Jim Monday and his attorney are on their way to meet with Jim's wife, her lover and their attorneys to decide what Jim's about to be ex, Julia, will get in the divorce settlement when a voice goes off in Monday's head telling him to, "Jump back!" Jim obeys as a speeding car strikes and kills his lawyer. The voice belongs to a young woman being held captive in New Zealand. Priest does an excellent job in getting you to suspend your disbelief, at least it was pretty easy for me to accept that someone under duress could shut down and throw their thoughts halfway around the world, at least the way Priest sets it up.

Monday knows he has to rescue the woman, but first he has to rescue his wife from her fiance, who turns out to be as rotten as they come. To make matters worse for Monday, he manages to get arrested, for assaulting said fiance, then he kills a couple of the fiance's hencemen in a daylight jailbreak, so now he's wanted for murder. But wait, Monday's got even more problems. It seems that that very same fiance controls a kind of shape changing giant gecko thingy straight out of Maori folklore. And that brings us full circle, back to New Zealand and the voice in Monday's head that stays with him through this fantastic read.

As I've come to expect by reading this fine young writer, the characters in this story were as believable to me as my next door neighbor, who I don't like very much by the way, because he plays his music all night long. Rock and Roll would be all right, but there is nothing worse than Rap rapping through your walls when you can't make out the words. Whoops, sorry for the digression, but Priest's characters really are a real as that rapper which is just one of the reasons I really, really liked this book. The others are the great story and the greater than great Gecko bad guy thingy monster.

Rating:
Summary: Two Thumbs Up!
Review: Jim Monday is a guy in his fifties, almost over the hill, well in his opinion he's already there. His wife has left him and he's not handling it well. He despises the man she's left him for, but he's decided to give her everything she wants without a fight. Then his best friend is killed by a hit and run driver and all of a sudden Monday's life turns into a non-stop horror show. He is arrested at the scene of his friend's death and gets away by committing murder and now he is on the run. Someone wants him dead, and Monday thinks he knows who, the plastic surgeon who stole his wife.

But that evil doctor has a pet that is straight out of a bad place and before Monday can get his hands on the doc, he's going to have to deal with it. He's going to have to deal with a dogged and determined cop who is on his tail as well, but the most intriguing problem on his plate is the voice in his head, a young Maori woman from half a world away who is somehow connected with the the man who'd taken his wife and the monster that is trying to prevent him from getting her back.

This book kept me going throughout a stormy night. Scary weather outside, scary book inside. Several times during the night I woke my wife up to read her a few passages, till finally she was up too and I was reading aloud. "Gecko" is a very good book with characters my wife and I cared about. At times Mr. Priest streatches your imagination, almost to the breaking point, but it is a horror story and a very well written one as well, so we didn't have a problem suspending our believe in what we know is real and what is not. This one gets two thumbs up from us.